Idolcore

For pages and posts about idolcore.

This KING∞RAGE MV Is Like a Beautiful Time Capsule

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

I hate this week! Weeks at ends of months tend to be pretty busy for ol’ Maniac these days, anyway, but this one has been particularly trying for several reasons. I’ve barely looked at anything other than work, and everybody knows that work is dumb and is for suckers! In weeks like these, you look forward to Wednesday, Hump Day, because there’s a downhill coming soon — and even though I really still didn’t want to do anything extra yet I felt shot out of a friggin’ cannon this morning when I saw that my girls in KING∞RAGE had themselves a new MV. Why? Why not!

It makes me so giddy! This is basically Default Loudol from 2017, all the way from the screechy synth in place of guitars to the unnecessary growls to the synchronized headbangs in a warehouse. And considering that KING∞RAGE’s predecessor more or less debuted in that window and sounded like that, it’s kind of like restoring factory settings on an idol unit, though I’ll be completely honest and say that I don’t feel like KING∞RAGE ever fell all that far from the tree.

Thank you, gods of Wednesday.

0

We Review Things: The Flowers of Passion – Episode 02

/ DAEMON / 4 Comments

Episode 02 of Derek Vasconi’s documentary series, The Flowers of Passion was made available for streaming on Friday, and I dug into it almost immediately. 

The episode packs a lot into 73 minutes, giving us XOXO EXTREME’s thoughts on the history of idol and the difficulties of holding a place in it, some dramatically personal insight into what it is like to be 14th Generation Toilet Hanako-San, footage from a special acoustic set by NaNoMoRaL, and a behind-the-scenes look at LiLii Kaona’s creative processes including the birth of their incomparable tune, “Rust”.

This is all delivered via extremely candid conversations and intimate performance footage capturing the action both on stage and in the studio. So far, the strength of the series stems from the presentation of the interviews and performances largely without external narration or commentary. Other than the first several minutes of episode one (which we reviewed here), the only editorial context comes from infrequent captions that usually serve an introductory purpose. The end result is that what we see and hear is almost entirely the unfiltered thoughts of the idols and their management or production staff.  Continue reading →

+2

We Haven’t Made Enough of a Big Deal out of BURST GIRL’s Latest So Let’s Do It Now

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

BURST GIRL, who it should not surprise you at all are a resident favorite here at Homicidols Dot Com, fairly quietly dropped themselves a new song the other day via MV and streamers, and we all had ourselves a nice react in Team chat and even talked about timing it to come on the heels of the ATARASHII GAKKOU post to take advantage of the (measurable and noticeable!) influx of traffic based on that group’s engineered international breakout. Why we didn’t do it yet is, uh, I’m pretty sure my fault, so get the hell out of my face.

Anyway, “Saiteihen Romance”:

Continue reading →

+1

GRATIA-ALA’s Just Cranking Out MVs These Days, Man

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

Well this was originally going to be a different post about not all of the things in it, but some of the things, yes, which is an excellent lesson in why it can be good to wait — completely unintended consequences of the thing you didn’t even mean to do can work out!

Which brings us to GRATIA-ALA, for whom I’ve always had a nice packet of love tucked back in the chika-reserved corner of my heart, but from whom we don’t always get a ton of media. Well, friends, let me tell you that we are currently in a glut — yes, a glut! — of GRATIA-ALA video, and I see no reason to further forestall getting into that.

The first, the most recent? My personal favorite:

Continue reading →

+1

Time for the First TOKYO Tefutefu Video

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

So we’re Codomoblog for a few days, no big deal. You take what the universe gives! But you guys, you’ve heard TOKYO Tefutefu to date, but now it’s time for their whole first digital single (technically tomorrow, no doubt on all of your favorite streaming platforms) in music video form!

You may have the same thought as multiples of Team did: Man, that is some high pitch! And yes it is. And that is a cool song and it would be nice if we could get some more. It’s also the first release from a new Codomomental project that didn’t have me immediately trying to connect the dots to other Codomomental projects, so that’s fun. Now let’s see where it all leads!

+2

I’m Sorry, Have We Not Been Talking about Kamikaze SENSATION This Whole Time?

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

Prepare yourself for a new Deeply Stupid Moment in Homicidols History, friend, because it is deeply stupid.

I have in the past humblebragged over the total number of idol acts whose work has graced the hallowed halls of this here fancy-ass website. I’ll even update that number for the anniversary in a few weeks! The point is, we cover a lot of idols, and though it seems like there’s never any shortage of new ones to come along (you should see the Let’s Discover queue!), the good ones at least always get held up for at least one or two posts because it’s hard to ignore a good act. Yeah, maybe there’s a weird gimmick of something, or they wind up being not as good as the thing that got you excited in the first place, and so we stop covering them unless something else particularly interesting happens, but in general if the hypothetical you that is an idol in this particularly poorly crafted sentence have done some good work and it is loud, we’re going to blog some posts about you.

Except Kamikaze Sensation, apparently! The excellent media you are about to consume dropped a tiny little bit ago, and I was like, oh that’s weird I don’t remember Kamikaze SENSATION that way, and so for evidence I started a search for Kamikaze Sensation inside of the bowels of Homicidols Dot Com and found only three draft posts that said nothing. So give me credit for on several different occasions meaning to write about Kamikaze Sensation, if nothing else.

But yeah, media: Continue reading →

0

All the Zenkimi Things

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Following the demise of Yukueshirezutsurezure and some membership turnings-over in KAQRIYOTERROR both building on the absolute tumult that was Zenbu Kimi no Sei Da last year, I think it would be fair for fans to wonder what all might be going on over at Codomomental HQ. Yeah, between akugi and Tokyo Tefutefu there are interesting new things afoot, but this is idol and for all we know they could self-destruct in a matter of of weeks — Tsurezure and Kaqriyo and Zenkimi are much more established quantities. And so it was that when the phone buzzed for a solid 10 seconds’ worth of notifications coming in under Zenkimi’s byline, of course I was a little concerned.

But as it turns out, at least for now, it’s all good! Continue reading →

+1

Codomomental Strikes Twice: New Track from Tokyo Tefutefu

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

Well, friends, we may have lost Yukueshirezutsurezure for good over the weekend (I hear that Daemon’s working on a retrospective), but Codomomental has proven over the years to be nothing but extremely flexible no matter the circumstances, and there are a pair of new projects for us all to become irrationally excited about. The first to meaningfully see the light of day was akugi, and now today we get the first (aural) look at the latest piece of the company’s puzzle, Tokyo Tefutefu.

As usual, it’s a two-hour preview; as usual, we here at Homicidols Dot Com love and respect you and will help you listen if you miss the window.

You know the drill. Continue reading →

+2

GO TO THE BEDS Was Just Pulling Our Legs!

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

So if you recall from … not long ago, there was some trepidation among WACK wota when GO TO THE BEDS did a little promo clip of themselves in gasp! frilly little tradol outfits with egads! lame-ass boring tradol music tinkling in the background, and they were doing the ganbare fists and stuff. I think Coco may have blown a kiss at the camera unironically! For about 45 seconds, people were deeply concerned. Had Watanabe finally lost it?

And then people who were alive in 2012 and/or know anything about the history of the company that GO TO THE BEDS is part of and recall their past forays into revisiting music video content from said company’s legacy acts speculated that perhaps this was a play on the famed “IDOL” incident from 2012, and there was much nodding in agreement among us. We won’t be fooled by any simpering sparkly idols! Continue reading →

+2

SPARK SPEAKER with a Great 2021 Message

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

Ah, SPARK SPEAKER. I’m trying to think of a group in right-now idol that’s as well-regarded without having quite broken through the chika glass ceiling. Talk to anybody — “Hey, how about that SPARK SPEAKER huh?” — and you’ll at worst get indifference, at best effusive praise and the kind of fanenbying* that my feed usually only looks like when BTS does something. They’ve been around for a lot longer than people think, have done a lot more than we realize, they perform as relentlessly as a very determined combination of Screaming Sixties and Guso Drop, and it’s like every damn thing they do is brimming with energy and super infectious.

And right now? They’re saying something that people need to hear more and more often, “Believe in yourself”, which yes is in song form apparently written by a labelmate and clearly not being new per se given that it’s been performed live enough to have plenty of material for this MV! Continue reading →

+1